{"id":21928,"date":"2012-01-13T15:55:00","date_gmt":"2012-01-13T21:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/visitmiddleton.com\/location\/middleton-train-depot-museum\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T10:41:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T15:41:19","slug":"middleton-train-depot-museum","status":"publish","type":"location","link":"https:\/\/visitmiddleton.com\/location\/middleton-train-depot-museum\/","title":{"rendered":"Middleton Visitor Center"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The historic train depot in downtown Middleton is home to the <strong>Middleton Visitor Center<\/strong> and Visit Middleton tourism offices. Find maps, brochures, visitor guides and more travel materials here for free, as well as a curated display of railroad photographs and items by the local <a href=\"http:\/\/middletonhistory.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Middleton Historical Society<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and just a short walk from the <a href=\"http:\/\/middletonhistory.org\/museums-2\/museums\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Rowley House Museum<\/strong><\/a>. The depot is open to the public from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday-Friday. Closed weekends and during city holidays.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Its history<\/strong><\/em><br \/>\nThere was no settlement at what is now downtown Middleton until 1856 when the Milwaukee &amp; Mississippi Railroad selected that location for its new rail line and depot. Development then shifted from the Pheasant Branch area, which had been a thriving settlement. Businesses spurred by the depot included three hotels, stockyards and warehouses. Until the 1870s, large quantities of wheat were shipped to market from the Middleton station.<\/p>\n<p>The present building, which was built in 1895, is the third depot \u2013 the first two were lost to fires. The depot continued as a passenger station for the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul Railroad until 1960 and as a freight depot until 1975. In that year, Middleton purchased the building for a senior citizens center. The depot was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":465,"template":"","location_category":[262,459,260],"class_list":["post-21928","location","type-location","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","location_category-things-to-do","location_category-downtown","location_category-services"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/visitmiddleton.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location\/21928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/visitmiddleton.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/visitmiddleton.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/location"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visitmiddleton.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/visitmiddleton.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"location_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visitmiddleton.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location_category?post=21928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}